On Tuesday, Color of Change unveiled its first-ever “Black Tech Agenda,” urging Congress to implement several policy changes to address “systemic discrimination” they say is perpetuated by major tech companies and their products.
For years, the group has been at the forefront of lobbying for new regulations on Capitol Hill to hold tech giants accountable for how their services exacerbate racial inequality. Robinson said he hopes the agenda will serve as a “road map” for legislation.
“We want to create some real clarity and vision in terms of what needs to happen in terms of technology accountability and advancing racial justice as it relates to technology,” Robinson said in an interview prior to the announcement, shared exclusively with Technology 202 . .
The platform covers a wide range of hot-button policy areas, including competition, data privacy and algorithms, and calls for lawmakers to incorporate a series of concrete proposals into law as they seek to regulate potentially harmful practices in the technology sector.
Lawmakers have passed legislation that adopts some of the group’s ideas, such as limiting the discriminatory use of personal data and requiring companies to audit their algorithms for bias. But if it turns out to be a law, they are few. Others appear to be treading new ground, calling for a more aggressive regulatory response from Washington.
The agenda calls for a civil rights lens to be included in merger reviews by regulators at the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department.
It also urges Congress to authorize agencies to “conduct regular studies on the impact of consolidated corporate power and antitrust enforcement on black workers, small business owners, and communities, and to hire additional staff with civil rights expertise.”
To address concerns about how algorithmic biases can exacerbate racial inequity, Color of Change has asked Congress to require regulators to “stop using discriminatory algorithms and eliminate these risks” and require companies to delete potentially harmful data sets.
The agenda calls for increased regulations across the Internet stack, from tighter regulation of broadband service providers that could bring greater liability to social networks whose content practices contribute to civil rights violations.
Several prominent Democrats are supporting the initial agenda, including Sens. Cory Booker (NJ) and Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) and Reps. Pramila Jayapal (Wash.) and Robin Kelly (Ill.).
“We need to implement privacy protections and strong racial justice provisions to protect black people and their personal data digitally, and I’m proud to partner on this campaign to advance equity and justice in the tech space,” Booker told Tech202.
Kelly, who co-chairs the Tech Accountability Caucus and the Racial Equity Working Group, said the group’s agenda will help guide technology policy to ensure that all people have access to the Internet and eliminate racism and discrimination. platforms and algorithms, and our cyber security is stronger.
But the group’s aggressive vision of controlling the tech sector could face strong headwinds on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers have reneged on years of promises for tougher rules of the road for the Internet.
To that end, Robinson said the group will soon release a “scorecard” that tracks how lawmakers on key committees stack up in their technology accountability work.
Those efforts, combined with their new agenda, will help Color of Change and other civil rights advocates determine how much these issues are being negotiated on Capitol Hill.
“Will the legislation moving through Congress help reverse the racial injustice these platforms have created? That can be a very powerful litmus test to assess whether we are really winning and moving things along,” he said.
Twitter Index Complaint Raises Questions About FTC’s Consent Provisions
Former head of Twitter security Peter “Mudge” Zatko In 2011, the organization requested to set up a comprehensive security system in violation of the declaration of agreement with the Federal Trade Commission. Cat Zakrzewski And Joseph Men Report it. The issue may come up this morning at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, as well as Zatko’s expected meetings with FTC officials.
Critics say the FTC has done little over the years to monitor compliance with such settlement provisions. These are the agency’s primary means of enforcing US consumer protection laws, my colleagues write.
More than half a dozen current and former FTC officials told the Post that the FTC did not do enough to catch suspected violations. “Officials chronically underfunded and understaffed have left the state’s largest Silicon Valley watchdog without the staff or technical expertise to monitor edicts and fines for noncompliance,” Kath and Joseph write.
The FTC said it will investigate potential violations of the order. “The commission is committed to enforcing the orders, and potential violations will be thoroughly investigated,” he said. Sam LevineDirector of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “Companies risk FTC orders.”
‘Severe weather’ shuts down Twitter data center
Twitter’s vice president of engineering Carrie Fernandez He called the closing of the Sacramento data center an “unprecedented event” and said the company is dependent on data centers in Atlanta and Portland, Ore., CNN reported. Donnie O’Sullivan., Brian Fung And Shawn Lingas Report it. If one of those data centers goes down, the company “may not be able to deliver traffic to all Twitter users,” Fernandez wrote.
The shutdown comes during a historically hot September in the West. California’s power grid is stretched to the limit.
The data center shutdown appears to be affecting Twitter updates. “All changes to Twitter products have been blocked, except for changes necessary to address service continuity or other urgent operational needs,” Fernandez wrote.
Access to the social media network was not disrupted, Twitter said. “At this time there have been no disruptions affecting people’s ability to access and use Twitter,” a Twitter spokesperson told CNN. “Our teams will remain equipped with the tools and resources they need to send updates, and we will continue to work to provide a seamless Twitter experience.”
Twitter says it won’t violate Musk’s agreement to pay Zatco.
Elon Musk Last week, Twitter disputed that it paid its former security chief $7.75 million. Peter “Mudge” Zatko And the lawyers said the deal to buy Twitter violated a provision that said Twitter could not make severance payments “in the ordinary course of business inconsistent with past practice.” Joseph Men He reported. The company’s lawyers argued that Musk’s reason for leaving the deal was “invalid and wrong,” and Twitter was fired on Monday. Svea Herbst-Bayliss Reports.
The termination of the deal is Musk’s third announcement. Musk and Twitter are due to go to trial in Delaware next month.
Meanwhile, a majority of Twitter shareholders voted on Monday to sell the company to Musk, Herbst-Bayliss wrote. The deadline for the election is today, but enough people have chosen the deal to make the results clear on Monday.
The shutdown of Twitter’s Sacramento data center due to severe weather has sparked jokes on Twitter. Editor Ariel Edwards-Levy:
Reporter: Zach Montelaro:
Elon Musk’s 19,000 Tweets Reveal His Complicated Relationship With Twitter (Linda Chong, Rachel Lerman, and Jeremy B. Merrill)
There’s a failed balloon-based internet plan for Google, and it involves lasers (The Verge)
Amazon’s workplace safety chief to leave next month, internal memo (CNBC)
Good buy, Type O: iMessages can finally be edited and deleted (Geoffrey A. Fowler)
- Twitter informant Peter “Mudge” Zatko He will testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee at 10 a.m. today.
- FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Stark He will speak at the Consumer Technology Association event today at 4 p.m
- Current and former executives of social media companies will testify before the Senate Homeland Security Committee at 10 a.m. Wednesday.
- The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing Wednesday at 3:30 p.m. on protecting Americans’ personal information from foreign adversaries.
- The FCC Jessica Rosenwersel He spoke at the US Chamber of Commerce’s Global Aerospace Summit on Wednesday.
- The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation and the XR Association will host an Augmented and Virtual Reality Policy Conference on Wednesday.
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